Main Menu

Last movie watched...

Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Enigmatic Dr X

Quote from: von Boom on 11 May, 2020, 02:57:40 PM
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 11 May, 2020, 01:32:27 PM
The Void

On Amazon.

The illegitimate child of  From Beyond and Prince of Darkness

Great 80s style horror. One of the most true takes on the Lovecraftian mythos I have seen on film. Total WTF ending.

I liked it.
Prince of Darkness is one of my favourite horror films. I'll definitely check out The Void. Cheers, Dr. X.

It's closer to From Beyond, but still wears its Carpenter on its sleeve.
Lock up your spoons!

Apestrife

Quote from: Apestrife on 04 May, 2020, 04:08:07 PM
Quote from: Greg M. on 03 May, 2020, 04:54:51 PMIf it's Corbucci, you can't go wrong with Django or The Great Silence.

I'll definitely check out The Great Silence. Looks great, and also Klaus Kinski stars in it. "Loco" is a fitting name for him haha. Saw Django 15 years ago. I remember it being really good. It and Great Silence could do for a nice double bill. Thanks for the suggestions :)

Ive now seen The great silence. Really good. Really liked its gritty and snowy setting. Hell of a an ending.

Greg M.

Quote from: Apestrife on 11 May, 2020, 06:33:43 PM
Ive now seen The great silence. Really good. Really liked its gritty and snowy setting. Hell of a an ending.

I love a good snow western, and yup - The Great Silence has some superb performances, not least Jean-Louis Trintignant, despite his character's limited ability to express himself. And the ending - that either makes or breaks the whole film. Glad it worked for you. It's worth looking at the alternate ending they shot, which goes in completely the opposite direction - almost comically so.

Colin YNWA

Phantom Menace

Well the boy wanted to watch all the Star Wars films and I've not watched Phantom Menace in years and so sat with him fully expecting to wonder off ... but the opening was kinda fun... and then the trip to Tatooine, then the Pod race ...and on and before I knew it classic three way end, space battle, ground battle and sabre fight - jobs done rewards all round roll credits. It fair flew by.

Now its absolutely riddled with problems, and when it does get things wrong it gets them spectaularly wrong - I'll not list them all here as we're all pretty well versed in it but the one example that really bugged me was the focus on Jarr Jarr in the Battle of Naboo stealing what could have been a pretty effective and exciting sequence - all be it Lucas did fumble the battle droids having any menace - by making it a comedy turn.

That said when it gets things right it gets them very right, music and visuals - for all the CGI shiny were wonderful. The pod race is fun and I still stand by the fact that the three way sabre battle at the end is the best sabre fight of any of the films. Its also very successful at having the feel and tone of the Saturday morning serials that so influenced Lucas. Its does that really well and is shiny like Flash Gordon is at times.

You know what I didn't hate it at all - not in the way a do TFA - at least Lucas was braver here for all its terrible mistakes. Most significently its made me want to watch the other two to re-evaluate them.

TordelBack

I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again - TPM takes a brave and original direction, has absolutely magnificent design and sound, and despite being saddled with terrible dialogue and flat performances,  it's my favourite prequel (currently tied with Solo). An heroic failure.

JamesC

The trouble with re-evaluation the prequels is that we've become so used to expecting them to be crap that any positive is amplified.
With the talent involved, and the toys they had to play with, some nice design and decent action sequences is the absolute least that should have been achieved.

Woolly

I've really warmed to TPM over the last decade or so.
Sometimes you have to admit to yourself that Star Wars should only be taken at face value, as a daft spectacle and nothing more. TPM delivers in spades, even if it's worst parts (the opening crawl, the focus on Jar-Jar*..) make me shudder a little.

In hindsight, the good stuff more than makes up for it. A heroic failure indeed.


*I've really no problem with Jar-Jar per se, just wish he was given a meatier role than the annoying comic relief...

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 15 May, 2020, 04:40:55 PM
Well the boy wanted to watch all the Star Wars films ... Phantom Menance yakkity yak...
...You know what I didn't hate it at all - not in the way a do TFA - at least Lucas was braver here for all its terrible mistakes. Most significently its made me want to watch the other two to re-evaluate them.

So we started Attack of the Clones this afternoon. 1 hour 20 minutes in the boy said shall we stop for now and I can go onto the trampoline. I didn't feel any need to resisit his request. Man this one is hard... we'll probably finish it tomorrow but to this point its worse than I remember... but maybe the best bits are in the second half... I mean I remember a cool battle and a cool sabre fight... right...

auxlen

My wife loves action films (escpecially revenge) and we watched 'Avengement' absolutely outstanding revenge action film.
'Run All night' a decent Liam Neeson flick with the ersatz Robocop and support.
'The Last Stand' a recent Arnie that was pretty good.

All in all, not my bag 100% but I give thanks every day I don't have to watch the Notebook or something of that ilk

Professor Bear

Quote from: JamesC on 15 May, 2020, 07:27:26 PMWith the talent involved, and the toys they had to play with, some nice design and decent action sequences is the absolute least that should have been achieved.

SOLO had all that going for it, and look what happened.  I recently I saw Twitter threads featuring the SOLO concept art, and they were full of character and colour and seemed to depict a much more interesting and enjoyable film.  I wish I'd seen that film instead of the one they shot in a coal mine.

SEA FEVER - Irish horror movie that does nothing new and covers a lot of ground familiar to horror and sci-fi fans.  If I said the words "Despair Squid" there's a good chance you already know what this is about, but it does the job and I found it a perfectly agreeable waste of 90 minutes of the ever-dwindling remainder of time allotted to my decaying flesh robot on this dying planet in an infinite and uncaring universe of random cruelty.

BIRDS OF PREY AND THE CONTRABULOUS FABTRAPTION OF HARLEY QUINN - I find Harley Quinn to be a rubbish character at the best of times and I can't stand Margot Robbie, so I was really looking forward to this awful film which often feels like a really expensive Legends Of Tomorrow spin-off thanks to the willfully self-aware highlighting of its own plot shortcomings, lengthy but pointless action scenes, and gratingly abrasive characters who only exist in the form they do because of the current vogue in screenwriting to equate being an asshole with being clever and/or right.  If you want to see this kind of thing done well, there's an animated Harley Quinn series that is much, much better, and which is actually funny on occasion rather than grating.

TordelBack

Quote from: Professor Bear on 16 May, 2020, 05:37:31 PMI wish I'd seen that film instead of the one they shot in a coal mine.

Oh yes indeedy.

I really, really enjoy Solo, but my first viewing of it was hands-down my worst Star Wars cinema experience for that very reason.  Later visits to a superb IMAX helped a lot, but home-viewing (and I've done a lot of that) leaves me squinting and rewinding repeatedly. With the exception of the Vandor train heist and the stuff on Savareen, it's early '90s fully painted artwork all over again.  Shame, because it has a lot going for it, when you can see it.

von Boom

Men in Black. A lot of fun and perhaps the very definition of a popcorn film.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 16 May, 2020, 04:00:54 PM
So we started Attack of the Clones this afternoon. 1 hour 20 minutes in the boy said shall we stop for now and I can go onto the trampoline. I didn't feel any need to resisit his request. Man this one is hard... we'll probably finish it tomorrow but to this point its worse than I remember... but maybe the best bits are in the second half... I mean I remember a cool battle and a cool sabre fight... right...

And finished it today and the second hour (well last 50ish) minutes are immense fun, when it remembers its meant to he high octane Sci-fi nonsense. As soon as we arrive on Geonisis the film remembers it meant to be a Saturday morning serial, throws in some Ray Harryhausen monsters and lobes enough action, explosions and cool - ohh look loads of Jedis running around with no idea, but being cool - that I entirely forgot the excusiating pain of watching the first 1 hour 20 minutes the day before. The boy child picked the perfect spot to stop yesterday. Get the pain over so when watching the second bit we could just think it must have been brill as this was and all quite exciting.

I forgot quite what an excellent job they did of making Yoda fighting not only work, but be ACE. Okay so some of the effects were at the pinnacle of the time when filmmakers thought they could do anything with CGI about 10 - 15 years before they could do most things.

I also forgot that the end did explain some of the jaw droppingly daft bits you thought you were seeing in the first half. The trail to lead to the clone army and the baddies was deliberately laid and the whole point was to use the Trade Federation to start a war and miltilarise the Republic... its actually a pretty cool plot in the end.

The film overall learns the mistakes of the first movie, gone are any mention of Midchloridiansthingies and illusions to being a biblical epic, learning that Jar Jar was a terrible mistake and so using him as a tool of unknown destruction. Having jetisoned those mistakes it has time and space to make fresh, new, even worse mistakes of its own. The first 1 hour 20  minutes would be pretty damned dull, even the set pieces feeling pretty uninspiring and forced. The only thing stopping it being so is the gut wrenchingly bad romance between Anakin and Padme. The pain of that dialogue meaning you don't have strenght to be bored.

The biggest mistake however even the end can't save and that's making Anakin such a twat. I mean the one thing the movie has to do to be successful is make us like the chap so that his decent to the darkside matters. I'm not going to blame Hayden Christensen as the evidence of Natalie Portman, someone we know has acting chops - suggests that even the finest actor can't work with this stuff. But Anakin lacks charm and rather than see him experience a decent its more a case of seeing him be a bit more of a git as the film goes on, but he started pretty gitty so there's no real sense of lose.

If only he'd had some charm like Ewan McGregor maybe this film could have worked so much more. Alas no and so it fails on its single most important thing. This is why the last 50 minutes watched in isolation works then. Cos there's too much flash bang whollop to really notice it doing so.

So it fundementally fails as a movie but damn that last 50 minutes is some brainless fun.

repoman

Watched Underwater. 

I don't recommend it

broodblik

Quote from: repoman on 17 May, 2020, 06:02:19 PM
Watched Underwater. 

I don't recommend it

Yes, I watched it as well and your review is spot on
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.